Author Archives: Frank Norman

About Frank Norman

I am a retired librarian. I spent 40 years working in biomedical research libraries.

Collaboratories and clubs

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Frank Norman

I first saw the word “collaboratory” in a special issue of Science magazine in 1993 that was devoted to scientific computing. This was relatively early Internet days when we still got excited about the numbers of computers hooked up to … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliographic management, Social networking | Comments Off on Collaboratories and clubs

Genomics poetry competition

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Frank Norman

I was delighted to see a new poetry competition announced. I must confess that I am not a big poetry afficionado, but I think on balance it is a good thing and deserves to be encouraged. The Scottish Poetry Library … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing | Comments Off on Genomics poetry competition

Confusing icons

Posted on July 30, 2010 by Frank Norman

In the good old days of Windows 3.1 I used to just have one or two web pages open at a time – sometimes more if I was feeling daring. Now I seem to have about 20 tabs in my … Continue reading →

Posted in Froth | 4 Comments

Publish and be jailed

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Frank Norman

I read an interesting account of the recent arrest of a research chemist in the USA. Chemical and Engineering News reports the case of Ke-xue Huang, a former Dow AgroSciences employee, who was arrested by the FBI for “theft of … Continue reading →

Posted in Copyright and IP | 3 Comments

Looking at an old funding decision

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Frank Norman

A historical article by Martin Johnson et al in Human Reproduction gives a fascinating insight into research funders’ thinking nearly 40 years ago. In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is widespread these days but still manages to excite controversy in some quarters. … Continue reading →

Posted in Ethics, Research Councils, Research management | 5 Comments

Copyright, data and research

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Frank Norman

I have written on copyright before. It is one of those things that are important but very hard to raise much enthusiasm about. Praise is due therefore to the British Library for their latest effort. They have just released a … Continue reading →

Posted in Copyright and IP, Research data | Comments Off on Copyright, data and research

Librarians and what we do – conference musings

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Frank Norman

I have just returned from the Health Libraries Group (HLG) Conference held at the Lowry Centre in Manchester Salford. I don’t often go to this biennial event, though I am a member of the Health Libraries Group. I am not … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Libraries and librarians | 5 Comments

Strength and grace

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Frank Norman

Tonight I have the privilege to take part in a performance of Mahler’s 8th Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. I will be singing in the Crouch End Festival Chorus, joining the BBC Symphony Chorus, Sydney Philharmonic Choirs, … Continue reading →

Posted in Friends, Music | 4 Comments

Prizes and anniversaries

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Frank Norman

Yesterday I attended BioMedCentral’s 10th anniversary celebrations and research awards. Yes, it is a whole ten years ago that Vitek Tracz created his novel publishing business model of “author pays” open access, or “gold” open access as it is sometimes … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access | 6 Comments

From Sci-Mate to Mendeley – a brief history of reference managers

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Frank Norman

This is an edited version of an article I wrote for the April issue of eLucidate, the UKEIG Newsletter. The bibliographic reference is the foundation of scholarship. A reference is a surrogate for knowledge, a surrogate for research results that … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliographic management | 5 Comments